occurred in 2007, waking Sir Alan in a cold sweat at the possibility that the period of "disinflationary pressures" that had stifled inflation since the '90s was ending.
As Greenspan details in his book The Age of Turbulence it was the shrinking global glut of unemployed workers, particularly in rural China, that made Alan tremble. "Too many" of the poorest of the poor were finding jobs, and thereby exerting upward pressure on wages world wide.
"Is there something wrong with this picture, that one of the world's most powerful economic decision makers (at the time), dreads the decline of mass unemployment and rising wages among people making 80 cents an hour?
"What, then, is the purpose of economic development, if not to raise the living standards for poor people?"
As Greenspan details in his book The Age of Turbulence it was the shrinking global glut of unemployed workers, particularly in rural China, that made Alan tremble. "Too many" of the poorest of the poor were finding jobs, and thereby exerting upward pressure on wages world wide.
"Is there something wrong with this picture, that one of the world's most powerful economic decision makers (at the time), dreads the decline of mass unemployment and rising wages among people making 80 cents an hour?
"What, then, is the purpose of economic development, if not to raise the living standards for poor people?"